Mayoral Money Race: Harrell Cashes In Big; Murray Spends $30K on Poll

It was a fruitful month for City Council member Bruce Harrell as the man who has memorized every line from The Godfather managed to haul in an impressive $70,000. Since entering the race last December, Harrell has amassed $183,000 and, more importantly, still has $106,000 cash on hand.

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State Sen. Ed Murray, of course, is hamstrung in terms of raising money because of the legislative session, which, who knows, may drag on until Christmas. Still, the amateur bird watcher did manage to rack up more than $100,000 in contributions the first two weeks of May – before the special session commenced. He’s raised a total of $224,000 and has $85,000 left in the kitty.

Interestingly, Murray spent $30,000 to commission an extensive poll, conducted by EMC Research, the firm that did polling for ex-Mayor Greg Nickels in 2009. The poll was in the field for four days the third week of May – after the candidate filing deadline – and 600 registered voters in Seattle were queried.

Sandeep Kaushik, one of Murray’s campaign consultants, said there are no plans to make the poll public and that it is for internal use only.

May, meanwhile, was generous to Mayor Mike McGinn, who raised $48,000. To date, he leads the pack in the all-important money race, with $227,000 – albeit, just a few thousand ahead of Murray.

Ex-councilman Peter Steinbrueck, who finished second to McGinn in a Survey USA poll released early last month, raised $36,000, and a total of $98,000 since he began his campaign late last year.

In other campaign developments, a group of former City of Seattle department heads and senior managers, all of whom has previously supported Tim Burgess, have written an open letter they have e-mailed out to other Burgess supporters announcing that they are endorsing Murray for mayor. They include: Patricia McInturff, former Seattle Director of Human Services; Adrienne Quinn, former Seattle Director of Housing; and Ken Bounds, former Seattle Superintendent of Parks